"Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades?"
reading the Hebrew word Ma‘anaddoth, instead of Ma’adannoth, following in this all the most ancient versions. On this view, Job is, in effect, asked, "Canst thou gather together the stars in the family of the Pleiades and keep them in their places?"
The expression of a chain or band is one suggested by the appearance of the group to the eye, but it is no less appropriate in the knowledge which photography and great telescopes have given us. To quote from Miss Clerke's description of the nebula discovered round the brighter stars of the Pleiades—Alcyone, Asterope, Celœno, Electra, Maia, Merope and Taygeta:—
"Besides the Maia vortex, the Paris photographs depicted a series of nebulous bars on either side of Merope, and a curious streak extending like a finger-post from Electra towards Alcyone . . . Streamers and fleecy masses of cosmical fog seem almost to fill the spaces between the stars, as clouds choke a mountain valley. The chief points of its concentration are the four stars Alcyone, Merope, Maia, and Electra; but it includes as well Celœno and Taygeta, and is traceable southward from Asterope over an arc of 1° 10´. . . . The greater part of the constellation is shown as veiled in nebulous matter of most unequal densities. In some places it lies in heavy folds and wreaths, in others it barely qualifies the darkness of the sky-ground. The details of its distribution come out with remarkable clearness, and are evidently to a large extent prescribed by the relative situations of the stars. Their lines of junction are frequently marked by nebulous rays, establishing between them, no doubt, relations of great physical importance; and masses of nebula, in numerous instances, seem as if pulled out of shape and drawn into festoons by the attractions of neighbouring stars. But the strangest exemplification of this filamentous tendency is in a fine, thread-like process, 3´´ or 4´´ wide, but 35´ to 40´ long, issuing in an easterly direction from the edge of the nebula about Maia, and stringing together seven stars, met in its advance, like beads on a rosary. The largest of these is apparently the occasion of a slight deviation from its otherwise rectilinear course. A second similar but shorter streak runs, likewise east and west, through the midst of the formation."[229:1]
NEBULOSITIES OF THE PLEIADES.
Photographed by Dr. Max Wolf, Heidelberg.[ToList]
Later photographs have shown that not only are the several stars of the Pleiades linked together by nebulous filaments, but the whole cluster is embedded in a nebulous net that spreads its meshes far out into space. Not only is the group thus tied or bound together by nebulous clouds, it has other tokens of forming but a single family. The movements of the several stars have been carefully measured, and for the most part the entire cluster is drifting in the same direction; a few stars do not share in the common motion, and are probably apparent members, seen in perspective projected on the group, but in reality much nearer to us. The members of the group also show a family likeness in constitution. When the spectroscope is turned upon it, the chief stars are seen to closely resemble each other; the principal lines in their spectra being those of hydrogen, and these are seen as broad and diffused bands, so that the spectrum we see resembles that of the brightest star of the heavens, Sirius.
There can be little doubt but that the leaders of the group are actually greater, brighter suns than Sirius itself. We do not know the exact distance of the Pleiades, they are so far off that we can scarcely do more than make a guess at it; but it is probable that they are so far distant that our sun at like distance would prove much too faint to be seen at all by the naked eye. The Pleiades then would seem to be a most glorious star-system, not yet come to its full growth. From the standpoint of modern science we may interpret the "chain" or "the sweet influences" of the Pleiades as consisting in the enfolding wisps of nebulosity which still, as it were, knit together those vast young suns; or, and in all probability more truly, as that mysterious force of gravitation which holds the mighty system together, and in obedience to which the group has taken its present shape. The question, if asked us to-day, would be, in effect, "Canst thou bind together by nebulous chains scores of suns, far more glorious than thine own, and scattered over many millions of millions of miles of space; or canst thou loosen the attraction which those suns exercise upon each other, and move them hither and thither at thy will?"
